Kwelanga part 3

Finally, by morning, the chief and his advisor knew what to do. No one had ever survived the climb up Mt. Zulu. At the top stood a thorn tree. When Zamo arrived at the great chief's home at sunrise, the Chief said, "Sitting high on top of Mt. Zulu is a great tree of thorns. If you survive the treacherous climb, then you must take the furthest thorn from the branch reaching out beyond the cliff and bring it back to me." At that the chief went to take his rest.

Zamo courageously looked up at Mt. Zulu and up at the thorn tree reaching out far beyond the cliff. He knew the danger ahead, but proceeded anyway with hope in his heart. Steadily he began to climb, pulling himself over large boulders and sharp rocks. When finally, after many hours of climbing, Zamo pulled himself to the top. He looked down over the cliff at the sharp and rugged earth far below. One false step and he would surely fall to his death. As he began to reach for the thorn tree, there came again a song of grace and beauty.
"Thorn tree, thorn tree
wind and weather worn tree
your topmost thorn please
pluck for Zamo and me."
At that a great wind blew down from the heavens and the thorn pulled itself from it's branch and feel into the outstretched arms of Zamo. Zamo held tightly to the thorn and when he turned to go back down the Mt., he saw Kwelanga smiling and waiting for him. He then knew it had been Kwelanga all along who had encouraged him to succeed in his tasks.

Hand in hand, they returned to her father, the great chief Abebe. When he saw the thorn in one hand and Kwelanga in the other, it was the great chief who bowed low.
" You have no land
you have no riches, but you have courage and love in your heart for my daughter. There is no better man in the land to marry my dearest daughter, Kwelanga. "

Kwelanga and Zamo were married and built a beautiful and modest home using felled trees, mud from the river and rocks from the mountain. And there they lived a happy and fruitful life together always.

THE END

Last trip to Sonoma....

Three years ago.. Dell, Tess and I headed out to Sonoma- Russian River area for a wine weekend. This weekend, Dell and I make the return to Healdsburg. We are staying at a super cute B & B, called the Camelia Inn... looking forward to wine, good food and friends.

Another Jane Kurtz post...

So my favorite author and pen pal, Jane just sent me another two books!! I send this woman who is a very busy author and speaker an incredibly belated thank you and a week later, I get these two books in the mail. I believe that Goodwin Book Club will need to have a Jane Kurtz book as one of the selections!!!

Super New Shoes!!

So, I needed to get a new pair of run around sneakers.. and had my eye on these Ed Hardy ones that I saw on Nordstrom.com.. well they didn't have them at the store but I found these.. They are called Eco Sneaks. They are made of recycled tires, hemp and organic cotton.. I think they are pretty sweet-- I'm excited to wear them this weekend!!

A fun easy school craft...

Okay, so I got this cute little flower from a little girl in 2nd grade. It is made out of three small red paper hearts, one green paper leaf and a dum dum lollypop.. Punch a whole through each of the hearts and leaf, put the lolly in and a little tape underneath. Then the little girl, had them all in a basket and they looked like a basket of flowers. A very fun little craft for any school parties you all have coming up!!

Paczki Day!!

Yea!! It is Paczki Day-- yes there is a reason that I will never lose these ten pounds-- because there is always something super yummy to celebrate with. My philosophy with these is that they are only sold one day a year-- so how do you pass that up?? Now, I didn't order any, but usually if I can get to Kay's bakery by 7 ish.. I can snag some. They are just like jelly filled donuts, but oozing with filling and made fresh. Oh and they are super messy!!!

Happy Mardi Gras!!

Happy Fat Tuesday everyone!! My sister sent me Carnivale Cake coffee that is made by Community Coffee, which is sort of like their Caribou coffee shop-- it is super yummy and supposed to be made to taste like a King Cake(see picture above). She also sent me these super cute Mardi Gras cookies that are yellow, purple and green with smiley faces.. I've tasted them and am taking the rest to school today to share with my Tuesday kids. Even though I just did Valentine's crafts last week, I'm thinking of making masks with the kids. With lots of glitter(though I get slightly nauseous at the thought of all the glitter all over my floor, table and chairs) and Popsicle sticks to hold them up with. If I do, I'll take pictures and post them tonight.

Happy Valentine's Day to all...

There are a lot of stressors at my job.. and in education in general... but one of the things that we do right are holidays!! Every holiday is more fun when it is spent with kids. So, Valentine's Day is a super big deal in elementary school-- with as much candy as Halloween, fun crafts and lots of festivities. As a single person.. heck even when I'm dating someone I don't think much of this holiday.. I've insisted that boyfriends not make plans, I will usually invite them over, order a pizza, have a yummy dessert and call it a night. The whole day seems kind of forced with adults.. but with kids, it's just plain fun.

So this monkey I got from a student. On Monday, L said to me that she had a special surprise for me on Valentine's Day. She is a fourth grader and in general education. So I get to school on Friday and I walk into my office and this monkey is tied to my door handle.. no card or anything-- so I have my first group of kids there and it is a mixed group of 3rd and 4th graders and one little boy says, you got that from L, I saw her carrying it outside. So how cute is that.. because in 4th grade, you think this is a pretty cool gift.

The rest of day was spent making construction paper love bugs and then it was party time... and the kids spend their time walking around school giving away candy and cupcakes-- I get a lot of sticky candy and smooshed cupcakes--that have to secretly be put in my trash can. But it is very sweet of them. One little guy said that there were two extra valentines in his box and his teacher got one and I, "Mrs. Jones" got the other... the Miss is always lost on them.

Well, I hope you all had a wonderful Valentine's Day!!!

Step 1... for summer 2010

Well, I've heard back from Sr. Donna and she has given me the green light to come down this summer. Her quote: "How wonderful it would be for you to come this summer!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wonderful! Wonderful!!!"

So.. I should probably start looking into if any of my shots are expired.. double check that my visa is still good and start pricing flights. This is so less planned than last year.. I'm starting to hyperventilate!

Books for Ethiopia Reads...

Last year my school did a ton of fundraising for my trip. I feel bad asking them to do that again-- partially cause I just did and partially because this year, we are no longer allowed to ask our students for field trip money... so we are constantly fundraising so they can still go on field trips(that's another long bureaucratic mess I could rant about).

But without my asking, my librarian decided to hold a raffle during Book Fair at school. So we have the Scholastic books brought in and the kids can buy them during their media period and P/T conferences. She decided that the raffle would be to raise money to buy books for Ethiopia Reads!! My librarian, Debbie told the kids that for any amount of a donation, they would get a raffle ticket for a pizza lunch with her and me and more during ISAT testing week. I think she plans to give them each a book and we are going to talk about Ethiopia Reads and we even found a book called My Library is a Camel that I'm going to read to the kids. Each child could only have one raffle ticket. Well, last Friday, she told me that they had raised $185, which is way more than I ever thought.

Now, the only downside to this is that -- I need to use the money to buy books at the fair(cause then our school gets more $$). And dragging books several continents is not the easiest manner, but it was so great of her to do--so I used my $$ and bought 35 books, mostly leveled readers, which are paperback, are written simply, most about Science topics and they were one of the types of books that Ethiopia Reads suggested if you were going to buy books and not just donate money. Plus these books are the easiest to pack in my suitcases. I was excited at how many leveled readers there were in non-fiction topics but my librarian said it is cause all the kids want the pencils, posters and books about famous people, movies and Disney characters-- something wrong with that, don't you think??

I want one of these....

These were the strawberry drinks at Kaldi's. They are literally just pureed fresh strawberries and absolutely delicious. At Saturday breakfast at one of my favorite little places called Meli this past weekend and I had a mixed juice, it was good but seriously could not hold a candle to the delicious chamaki I had in Ethiopia!!!

Kwelanga part 2

Early the next morning, Zamo arrived back at the Chief's home and there he bowed low. "I am here to win the hand of Kwelanga" he quietly spoke.

"Prepare to return home tomorrow Zamo. Today you must fill these 1,000 jugs to the top with water from the river. They must be filled by sundown." The Chief proudly turned to go back inside thinking to himself "surely no one could fill all the jugs, it is impossible." and he waited for sundown to come to send Zamo home.

But as Zamo struggled to carry water back and forth from the river, he heard a most beautiful song being sung....
"River flowing
ever are you growing
Please flow for Zamo
fill the jugs so."

Just then the river began to flow faster and filled his bowl more quickly and as he worked and sweat and grew tired, he knew he would finish by nightfall and he felt quite pleased with himself. As the sky began to change color and the sun began to slip down behind the mountains, Zamo returned to show the Chief who could hardly believe his eyes.
"Wah!" he said, "Surely I have made still too simple a test." And he sent Zamo away telling him to return in the morning.

The Chief then called to him his greatest advisor and they talked all night of a test that surely Zamo could not pass. Impossible that a poor peasant boy could win the hand of the great Chief's daughter.

To be continued...

Take a Deep Breath...

I need to take a deep breath, count to ten and try to not say anything if you can't say anything nice!!! All day yesterday and today I have been chanting to myself all the things I tell the kids at school. Despite some great things going on in my life lately and a really great weekend-- I recently had some unnecessary negative stress added. I don't feel that it is at all justified and frankly, is a great big dose of crazy town-- but still irritating!! I always tell the students, you do not have to be friends with everyone but just don't be mean-- and I really try to follow that advice as well.

So, I am going to take one more great big deep breath in and out and try to move on out of crazy town!!!